Impact of plant protection strategy and soil tillage on the carbon footprint of wheat

Der Klimaschutz liegt aufgrund der zunehmenden negativen Auswirkungen des Klimawandels auf die pflanz­liche Produktion im Eigeninteresse der Landwirtschaft. Welche Auswirkungen unterschiedliche Pflanzenschutzstrategien, der Verzicht auf Fungizide sowie eine reduzierte Bodenbearbeitung auf die Klimawirkung der Weizenproduktion haben wurde aufbauend auf einem Dauerfeldversuch in Dahnsdorf in 2008–2019 untersucht. Die Bewertung wurden mittels partieller Lebenszyklus (LCA) durchgeführt. Im Durchschnitt über sämtliche Versuchsvarianten und Jahre lagen die Treibhausgasemissionen (THG-Emissionen) bei 3002 kg CO2eq ha‑1 und der CO2-Fußabdruck (CFP) bei 0,53 kg CO2eq kg‑1. Obwohl die Varianten mit wendender Bodenbearbeitung signifikant höhere THG-Emissionen je ha aufwiesen, waren Ihre CFPs nicht signifikant höher als die der nicht-wendenden Varianten. Die ertragssichernde Wirkung der Fungizide führte zu verringerten CFPs. Signifikante Jahresunterschiede zeigten sich bei allen drei untersuchten Parametern. Dies unterstreicht die Notwendigkeit einer Bewertung über längere Zeitreihen und den besonderen Wert von Langzeitversuchen.Climate protection is in the self-interest of agriculture due to the increasing negative effects of climate change on crop production. The effects of different crop protection strategies, the non-usage of fungicides, and reduced tillage were assessed regarding climate impact of wheat production based on a long-term field trial in Dahnsdorf in 2008–2019. The assessment was carried out using a partial life cycle assessment (LCA). On average across all treatments and years, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were 3002 kg CO2eq ha-1 and carbon footprint (CFP) was 0.53 kg CO2eq kg-1. Although the treatments with plow caused significantly higher GHG emissions per hectare, their CFPs were not significantly higher than those of the non-plowed treatments. The yield-securing effects of fungicides led to reduced CFPs. Significant differences between years were evident for all three parameters examined. This underlines the need for an evaluation over longer time series and the special value of long-term field trials

A sample water quality index (WQI) forecasting dataset

This dataset can be used for AI water quality monitoring and assessment systems. </p

Inconsistent Results of Roundabout Implementation: A Case Study in Louisiana, USA

Because of its historically good performance in many European countries, roundabout has been promoted in the United States since 1990’s. Generally roundabout provides an opportunity to improve traffic flow efficiency and reduce traffic conflicts when designed and located appropriately. Louisiana currently has 25 roundabouts in operation and more than couple of hundreds of roundabouts in design and planning stage. Although the advantages of roundabout have been documented in the U.S., the safety benefits may vary significantly due to uniqueness of each location’s conditions and detailed design selections."br" A study conducted in Louisiana has revealed some interesting results on the safety benefits of roundabout applications from 15 locations. Minimum six years of crash information for each location were used in the analyses including not only the crash database, but also the original crash reports. Through reading the original crash reports, the research team obtained many interesting information from the narratives and collision diagram of original crash report, which proved to be very beneficial in identifying design issues and human factors relating to crash occurrences and consequences (severity)."br" The combined analysis (before-and-after and reviewing crash report) generally demonstrated that the level of success of a roundabout depends on the design details and local driving behavior. With inconsistent results in changes of total crashes before and after roundabout implementation, the analyses show that all roundabout intersections experienced a reduction in severe crashes, but increase in single-vehicle running-off-roadway crashes. The changes in total crashes varied by type of previous traffic control and design details. The significant increase of non-collision crashes (single vehicle crashes) at all roundabout intersections during the first three years of operation may result from unfamiliarity with roundabout operation, distracted drivers, large vehicles with difficulties negotiating curvature and application policy, i.e., lack of intersection lighting at rural areas. By and large, it is clear that the safety effectiveness of roundabout varied with location and design details. In order to optimize roundabout benefit at a particular location, designers must pay close attention to location geometric layout, surrounding environment, and land use. Failure to recognize the unique characteristics at each individual location may lead to unintended results

Safety evaluation of centerline rumble strips on rural two-lane undivided highways: Application of intervention time series analysis

Centerline rumble strips are low-cost effective countermeasures installed on the center of the highway segments to reduce crashes, especially roadway departure crashes. For safety evaluation of centerline rumble strips, methodologies such as naïve before-after analysis and cross-sectional study with Empirical Bayes have been widely utilized. The implementation of these methodologies may be limited due to the lack of relevant control groups, and/or other temporal variations in crashes such as seasonality and serial autocorrelation. This study aims to explore Intervention Time Series Analysis approach as an alternative method for the safety evaluation of centerline rumble strips on rural-two-lane undivided highways in Louisiana. Two different methodologies are explored in the intervention time series approach including the Forecast modeling technique and the Auto-regressive Integrated Moving Average intervention model. The forecast models are based on the exponential smoothing technique, state-space framework, and neural network model. The database consists of monthly observations of total and target crashes on 312 highway segments of 1274 miles in length in which centerline rumble strips were installed during the 2010–2012 period. The time frame 2005–2012 is defined as the pre-intervention period whereas the time frame 2013–2017 is defined as the post-intervention period. The analysis revealed that the Auto-regressive Integrated Moving Average intervention model performed better in terms of error estimates including root means square error, mean absolute error, and mean absolute percentage error. The proposed Auto-regressive Integrated Moving Average intervention model reveals a 17.75% total and 40.54% target crash reduction on the selected rural-two-lane undivided highway segments during the post-intervention period. All the findings are found statistically significant at a 95% confidence level

TRANSIENT STABILITY ANALYSIS OF GRID CONNECTED FUEL CELL SYSTEM

Fuel Cell Technology has become quite popular now a days. Since it is a renewable energy source, the development of fuel cell technology has drawn much attention among the researchers and scientists over the last few years. The prime focus of this paper is to analyze and enhance the transient stability of a grid connected fuel cell system. A MATLAB/SIMULINK based fuel cell system has been implemented along with the proposed inverter control strategy. The purpose of this inverter control is to enhance the transient stability of the system. Another salient feature of this study is the inclusion of a Z source inverter with the grid connected fuel cell system. The simulation results are carried out to verify the inverter control strategy under different fault condition. Finally, this paper presents transient analysis of a grid connected fuel cell system including detail simulation results in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment

Safety effectiveness of roadway conversion with a two way left turn lane

In urban or suburban areas with a large number of access points, four-lane undivided highways are prone to crashes due to left-turning and through movements in a single lane. Many studies recommended expensive countermeasures like conversion from undivided to divided road with physical separation. One inexpensive alternative is reconfiguring the existing roadways by either increasing or decreasing the number of lanes. This study investigated the safety impact of converting four lane undivided roadways (4U) to five lane undivided roadways (5T) with a two way left turn lane (TWLTL). This study used Empirical Bayes method to determine the safety impact of this inexpensive countermeasure. In this study, data from eight sites from Louisiana were collected for investigation, and site-specific crash modification factor (CMF) values were calculated. Although 5T is usually not preferable due to its exposure of higher number of crashes in the existing literature, the findings of the current study indicated a positive safety impact. The benefit-cost ratio of this conversion ranges from 97 to 379. The current findings indicate that conversion of 4U to 5T is a feasible inexpensive solution for urban roadways with lower volume and a limited number of driveways. Keywords: Lane restriping, Two way left turn lane, Empirical Bayes, Crash modification factor, Benefit cost rati

A thorough investigation on hybrid application of biomass gasifier and PV resources to meet energy needs for a northern rural off-grid region of Bangladesh: A potential solution to replicate in rural off-grid areas or not?

Rural electrification is a critical global challenge specifically in developing countries and Bangladesh is no exception. Most of the people live in the rural areas of the country and having no access to grid electricity hindering the development of these areas and the overall progress of the country's economy severely. In this regard, renewable energy based hybrid mini-grid can be a viable solution to ensure access to electricity for all. This paper presents a case study of supplying electricity through hybrid mini-grid to the rural unelectrified areas of the northern region of Bangladesh, and provides an analysis of its business creation, operation and related challenges. The study involves modelling of three alternative configurations for electricity generation with the different combination of solar energy, biomass generator, diesel generator and battery storage resources. Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewable (HOMER) software is used to carry out the techno-economic analysis and identify the optimal off-grid system configuration. The analysis exposed that the per unit cost of electricity from the optimum off-grid supply configuration is much higher than the regulated tariff for grid connected residential consumers and cannot reach grid parity even with the full capital subsidy. However, the cost of off-grid supply is economical than the diesel-only supply option or the cost of owning a solar home system. The analysis further considered different electricity selling tariff to obtain a practical and reasonable payback period to make the proposed hybrid mini-grid system economically worthwhile. From the emission analysis, it is found that the proposed hybrid system would produce 75% lower CO2 than the existing methods of fulfilling energy needs in the study area

Understanding the contributing factors to young driver crashes: A comparison of crash profiles of three age groups

Despite the adoption of the Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) in 1998, the disproportionately high rate of young driver (15–24 years) crashes is still prevalent on Louisiana roadways. This paper utilizes the five years (2014–2018) crash data in Louisiana aiming to compare the crash profiles of three age groups (15–16 years, 17–19 years, and 20–24 years) to determine the contributing factors, crash characteristics, and severity outcomes. An extensive review of previous literature along with engineering judgments facilitated the understanding of the crash variables that were eventually used in the multinomial logit model with additional consideration of the current framework of the statewide GDL program. Results revealed that factors such as driving violation, distraction, passenger presence, time of crash, and driver protection system have been highlighted as the top ten predominant factors in multiple young driver groups. This study shows there is a ground for data-driven improvement for young drivers in Louisiana by presenting a broader view of a variety of issues based on the findings. Nighttime driving outside passenger restricted hours in GDL program, violations especially ‘failure to yield’, driving behaviors such as cellphone distraction especially in drivers aged 17–19 years and non-use of driver protection system across all young driver age groups are among the addressable key issues that may be influential in reducing young driver crashes. The study concludes that implementation of the GDL program would be more effective through continuous improvement and reevaluation of its components and strategic application of complementary young driver safety programs

Bangladeshi University Students' Mental Health Dataset

This dataset comprises mental health data from 1977 Bangladeshi university students across 15 top universities, collected from November to December 2023 using Google Forms. It includes assessments of academic anxiety, stress, and depression using widely used psychometric scales. The structured questionnaire covers sociodemographic variables and their associations, facilitating comprehensive analysis. Statistical analysis yielded satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha: 0.79), with anonymized participant data valuable for policymakers.</p